Meerkat: An Open Wire Service

Editor's note: Meerkat predated the popularity of syndication, feed services, and feed readers. Now that other groups are providing this service, we have removed Meerkat in favor of their better solutions. We maintain these articles for the sense of historical interest.

Meerkat is a Web-based syndicated content reader. It is based
on Rich Site Summary (RSS),
an XML specification used for distributing news, product announcements,
discussion threads, and other assorted content as channels.
Meerkat provides a simple interface to these stories. While maintaining
the original association of a story with a channel, Meerkat's focus is
on chronological order -- the latest stories float to the top, regardless
of their source.

I have been using Meerkat for many months now. It has replaced nearly a
dozen listserv and majordomo subscriptions and given back nearly an hour of
my time daily. I'd be willing to vote Meerkat a Killer App. Thank you for
bringing this to the 'net!

Miles Baska
Software Answer
Taylor, Texas

Tell Me More About RSS ...

RSS was developed by Netscape in 1999 as a way of drawing in content
from the Web for use in its
My Netscape
portal. It was later extended by Netscape and Dave Winer of
My Userland fame.

Why Meerkat?

Meerkat borrows its name from members of
the mongoose family. Meerkats, being rather low on the food chain, have
to be mighty careful when going about their daily business -- someone
always stands guard, scanning the horizon for anything that moves.
With the wealth of information flowing through the Internet, we're like
Meerkats ourselves trying desperately to take in everything that floats
past our field of view. But invariably the particular nugget of information
we most need won't come anywhere near where we're looking.

Meerkat brings the stories you care about to a central location,
saving you from all that annoying site-hopping. Now you can go on
with your daily business knowing that someone is scanning the horizon
for you.

How Does Meerkat Work?

Meerkat maintains a list of channels in a database.
Every hour, Meerkat visits the RSS file associated with each channel,
adding new stories -- those as yet unseen by Meerkat -- to the database.

The Meerkat front-end builds a query using your specified preferences,
searches the story database for matches, and displays them for your
reading pleasure.

Meerkat's back-end is written in Perl,
and uses the following modules:
LWP::UserAgentDBI,
DBD::mysql,
and
XML::Simple
The front-end is written in
PHP.
Meerkat is served up by an
Apache
Web server, and keeps its data in a
MySQL
database.

Are There Any Other Such Readers?

Yes indeed; Meerkat's focus is on a chronological flow of stories
of interest to developers, programmers, Web designers, intranet/extranet
administrators -- those who turn to
O'Reilly
for their books and
The O'Reilly Network
for news and content.

Netscape's
My Netscape,
the originator of RSS, provides a great "start" page organized along
channel lines. Customize your page by adding and removing channels at
will.

Both of these aggregators allow you to register either
RSS or ScriptingNews formatted channels.

Meerkat actually visits each of these aggregators every morning,
noting any new channels it comes across. Of these, those
appropriate -- usually technology/computer/geek/science related -- for aggregation by the O'Reilly Network are picked up.

Other Meerkats

For more information on Meerkats (the creature, that is),
point your browser at: